Navy offense flexes its muscles

Dave Matter

Monday

Dec 28, 2009 at 12:01 AMDec 28, 2009 at 1:00 PM

As residents of Spread Offense Central — i.e., the Big 12 Conference — Missouri’s defensive coaches and players have spent the last three weeks acquainting themselves with Navy’s flexbone formations in preparation for Thursday’s Texas Bowl. In essence, Navy’s flexbone mixes concepts of the wishbone and run-and-shoot offenses and lives on a super-sized serving of triple-option running plays.

For any flexbone offense to work, there are some crucial ingredients. Here, Scott Jazdzewski, a high school coach in Waupun, Wis., and the president of the Flexbone Association, breaks down four personnel staples of the flexbone.

Smart quarterback: “Obviously, the Naval Academy doesn’t have trouble finding leaders at their school, but you need a guy who makes good decisions and does not turn the ball over.”

Powerful runner: “You’ve got to have a fullback who can get you yards even if there’s no hole.” Jonathan “Dwyer at Georgia Tech is one of the best in the country at what he does. He can get you 2 or 3 yards even if there’s nothing there.”

Selfless blockers: “You need slotbacks and receivers willing to block. You aren’t going to throw the ball a lot, but if you can get those perimeter defenders blocked, you really have a chance to have big plays.”

Mobile linemen: “You don’t need the 6-7, 310-pound guys playing tackle. ideally, you’re going to have a guy 270 who can really run. These guys, a lot of times, they get out on the edge and they’re blocking linebackers and faster players. They’re not sitting there pass-blocking 45 times a game.”

It’s an offense that defies the game’s fashionable style of play — spread ’em out and let it fly — but don’t you dare call the Navy offense unique, at least not in the presence of Midshipmen offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper.

For Jasper and his ilk of bone-flexing mavericks, unique is a synonym for freak. And to imply that Navy’s run-oriented system is freakish makes the assumption that every other offense around the country has unlocked the secret to offensive football while the flexbone community is fumbling its keys at the doorknob.

“To be honest, I don’t think there’s anything unique about it,” Jasper said in a recent phone interview. “It’s old-school football. People don’t see it much and don’t like playing against it. … But I don’t think there’s anything special about it.

“It just comes down to teams around the country who have the courage to want to do it,” he added. “That’s what happened with Coach Johnson.”

Coach Johnson is Paul Johnson, the godfather of the flexbone, who in his second season at Georgia Tech has validated the offense he first mastered in Division I-AA then rode to success at the Naval Academy, a place that had been a graveyard for promising coaching careers since George Welsh worked the sideline from 1973-81.

But Navy’s offense came alive in 1985 in, of all places, Statesboro, Ga. During his first season as Georgia Southern’s offensive coordinator, Johnson added option plays to the flexbone system his predecessor had established the previous season. The flexbone patterned itself after the run-and-shoot system made famous by Darrel “Mouse” Davis’ Houston Gamblers of the USFL. That offense moved the two halfbacks from the standard wishbone formation out of the backfield and into the slot, just off the line of scrimmage. The flexbone backfield typically includes a quarterback and fullback (called the B-back) while the slotbacks (called A-backs) take turns blocking, snagging option pitches and catching the occasional pass.

Whether at Army, Navy, Georgia Tech or the dozens of high schools and small colleges scattered across the country that run the flexbone, triple-option plays are the main ingredient — though Johnson has often said it’s a misconception to brand his offense as the triple-option.

“That’s one play,” he said during a chalk-talk session posted last year on Georgia Tech’s Web site. “We run that play, oh maybe 20 percent of the time. Depending on the game, sometimes less than that.”

The principles behind the triple-option, though, are universal. Upon taking the snap, the quarterback reads certain defenders and, off those reads, either hands the ball to the fullback for a dive play … or keeps the ball and dashes upfield through a gap … or pitches the ball to a trailing slotback, a player often set in motion before the snap.

Such option plays are especially valuable for a team with size deficiencies along the line of scrimmage. The Mids’ offensive line averages just 6-foot-2, 264 pounds.

“Ideally, the offense only has to block nine guys on every play because there’s two players they’re reading,” said Scott Jazdzewski, a flexbone disciple who coaches at Waupun, Wis., High School. “If you’re reading those guys instead of trying to block them, it can take care of some physical mismatches that you might have up front.”

“If we had to line up and block their guys and run the power and iso and run conventional runs, we couldn’t do it,” Navy Coach Ken Niumatalolo said during a news conference earlier this month in Houston. “But with our option and not blocking everybody, it allows us to get more double teams.”

Niumatalolo and Johnson first crossed paths two decades ago at Hawaii, where Niumatalolo was the quarterback and Johnson the offensive coordinator. Niumatalolo eventually joined Hawaii’s staff as an offensive assistant, his first of 17 seasons working under Johnson. Among their players at Hawaii was Jasper, a quarterback/slotback. Jasper got into coaching, too, and worked under Johnson at Georgia Southern and Navy, where the three built an offense that helped establish a winning tradition in Annapolis. Thursday’s Texas Bowl in Houston is Navy’s seventh consecutive bowl appearance, a school record.

The Mids have ranked among the country’s top four rushing offenses every season since Johnson took over the program in 2002. When Johnson left Navy for Georgia Tech after the 2007 season, Navy promoted Niumatalolo from his coordinator post, and he promptly promoted Jasper from quarterbacks coach to coordinator.

Under their watch, Navy (9-4) has sustained the rushing success, ranking third among Football Bowl Subdivision offenses with 3,542 yards this season, one spot behind Johnson’s new team, ACC champion Georgia Tech, which plays Iowa in the Orange Bowl — a badge of honor for flexbone coaches working at other levels.

Two years ago, Jazdzewski and his friend Lou Cella, a high school coach in Nanticoke, Pa., formed the Flexbone Association, a national organization aimed at spreading the word of an offense that’s so old school it’s new school.

Through its Web site — www.flexboneassociation.com — Jazdzewski’s club acts as a resource center for coaches interested in adopting the offense. It offers playbooks, DVDs and written tutorials all about the flexbone. The site includes a directory of flexbone-based offenses that lists 277 high school programs and 25 from the college ranks. The list names six Missouri high school teams.

Among the unofficial rules of the club: Cheer for Georgia Tech. Cheer for Navy.

Because, in Paul Johnson, they trust.

“A lot of college guys will call it a high school offense and that it won’t work in college,” Jazdzewski said. “Well, all of us who run the offense, we follow Georgia Tech and follow all their games. We were more or less praying that they do well.

“And our biggest asset is the fact that the Academy runs it. If you just look at their physical talent, they’re outmatched by most people they play. But they beat teams with more talent because of the system.”

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